This is the third in an ongoing sermon series on the figure of David, preached at saint benedict’s table over these summer months. Our wrestling with these texts is to try to see just how this particular biblical character shapes and challenges the imagination of the people of God.
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etween last Sunday’s reading of the story of David and Goliath and this week’s Old Testament reading, the lectionary has skipped past a massive amount of material. David, the shepherd boy and unlikely hero, has been taken into King Saul’s own household, in part because the young man’s skill as a harp player means he is able to offer one of the only things that can sooth the soul of the increasingly mentally unstable king. Yet in time, because he is an increasingly popular and attractive figure, David becomes a threat to the king. Saul eventually issues what amounts to a death warrant, and David narrowly escapes into the wilderness; an escape made possible through the assistance of Saul’s own son Jonathan, with whom David has come to share a deep friendship.
interested church people in a series of conversations around his work on the Christian music subculture. Among the musicians present were Larry Campbell, Jenny Moore-Koslowsky and Mike Koop, as well as Steve Bell, who was invited to offer a reflection on his own work as a musician of faith.
just finished reading a very fine new book by 
ensemble led by Gord Johnson, we unpacked this parable in a way that allowed people to hear anew some of its deeper, more challenging and ultimately liberating textures. We are grateful to have received both the author’s and the publisher’s permission to use this cycle, titled The Father Empties His Coffers, as the focus for this liturgy. While the recording presented here does not capture the congregational singing, it does at least give some sense of how the music and the poetry were woven in and through each other.
possible that it will be his series of children’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia, which will have the deepest impact and the longest staying power of all of his work.